[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]In this game, it's not just a moment that lets you enjoy the flavor. It can also lead to some powerful combos.* In Return To Ravnica, the Azorius were given an entire runic alphabet, as seen in many of their cards. It's quite an interesting embellishment, until you realise that "rune" comes from the Indo-European root "reu", which is also the root for [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Ouranos]] and [[Myth/HinduMythology Varuna]]. Both are sky deities; which colour pair focuses on flying and the sky again?* Examine the art work for Dimir Charm. It's not a stone or medallion like the others, but actually an arrangement of windows that will only look like a Dimir symbol from a certain angle. Perfect imagery for a guild of secrets that few know the existence of.* Do you know why the Innistrad pack was delayed into 2011/2012? Think about it; wouldn't a world where all hope is being lost fit well into an year were everyone is paranoid about the end of the world? And now with Avacyn Restored, the up-beat ending after so many downer endings [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming sounds like reassuring that good will triumph in the end]].** Even better, add up the number of cards in the Innistrad block and you get a grand total of 666. Makes perfect sense that there are 666 cards to collect in a set based around demons, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and SealedEvilInACan.* The purpose and potential of a number of cards are easily overlooked at a glance. A good example is 'Goatnapper', which allows you to [[ExactlyWhatitSaysonTheTin gain control of an opponent's goat]]. A quick glance through the archives reveals two goats, neither in print, and both useless - until you remember the block it came out with contained the very useful [[VoluntaryShapeshifter changeling]] race, who [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot count as every creature type]]. Including "Goat". (As well as "Mutant", "Ninja", and "Turtle". [[TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles The Teenager creature type is]], however, still missing.)* Many cards contain subtle shout-outs to other cards that fall under this trope. For example, it's easy to notice that [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=126289 Fortune Thief]] is a throwback to the Arabian Nights card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=957 Ali from Cairo]], but if you look closely at the art, you can see that the Fortune Thief has the same ability because she stole Ali's magical amulet. There are numerous other examples, most of which are pointed out on the official website's "Magic Arcana" feature [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Archive.aspx?tag=arcana&description=arcana here]].* In the ''Scars of Mirrodin'' set for MagicTheGathering, the Phyrexians logo is a circle with a line through it. To put it in other words, its the lower case greek letter Phi. As in Phi-rexians. I facepalmed when I realized the connection.** Also note that phi is the symbol for the golden ratio... an antiquity mathematical value often attributed to perfection.* Speaking of which, I initially thought the "pay 1 life" thing was bad, but then I realized Yawgmoth's Bargain turns a plain ordinary Healing Salve into an Ancestral Recall. Awesome.** For many people, the realization that trading one life for one card is actually an absurdly good deal marks a huge step in their understanding of the game.* Also note that the new [[LightIsNotGood White]] Phyrexians have as their defining feature the fact that their skin was flayed and replaced by white, porcelain covering. The end result is that many of them look somewhat skeletical, specially when combined with their exposed muscle tissue. This is likely a call back to Kamigawa, in which several villains were White since that is the colour of death in traditional japanese culture, and indeed some Red and Black spirits of the same setting were also naturally coloured that way (specially [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=!yuki-onna Yuki-Onna]] and [[http://magiccards.info/sok/en/76.html Kemuri-Onna]]).** My basic thought upon seeing the various "seals" of Ravnica (which were basically instants like Terror and Shock redone as enchantments that would have the effect when sacrificed) was "hmm, vaguely interesting, but it does mean the opponent knows what's coming". Then I remembered one of the guilds of Ravnica thrives on having no cards in your hand, meaning that having a spell sitting out in the open in enchantment form waiting to be used is actually a tactical advantage. - @/CountDorku*** Oddly, they didn't print the entire Seal cycle - only the black Seal of Doom, and the red Seal of Fire. Hmmm, what colours was the guild that cared about having an empty hand again?** Necrogen Scudder was the only Phyrexian card in Scars of Mirrodin that didn't feature infect, proliferate, -1/-1 counters, or other Phyrexian mechanics and was not legendary like Geth. But it does require you pay 3 life. The Mirrans got all the lifegain, and a card which prevents life loss altogether, while Phyrexians got most of the life payment. But then you realize that Phyrexians don't care about life (since they win by poison counters) and are happy to pay it, as shown by Phyrexian mana cards.** The Phyrexian factions were shown out of place in the Planeswalker's Guide; instead of the usual WUBRG, it was WBUGR. While it was arguably to make the [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch Red phyrexians' goodness]] an epic reveal, it can also be indicative of which colours are more naturally phyrexian, starting with the [[LightIsNotGood highly dogmatic and organised White]] and ending with the freedom loving Red.* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=107327 Bronze Bombshell]] seems to be a fairly obvious pun on "blonde bombshell" that happens to actually be a bombshell. But why is it an artifact creature? It's an objectified woman. {{@/Chimaera}}** No, it's even better: it's a blow-up doll! — @/{{Troacctid}}* The Helvault is like Pandora's Box. It contains all the evil in the world. Once opened, all the evil comes out along with hope. Which in this case means Avacyn. @/{{PMiller1}}* The ''Dark Ascension'' set brought in the red/green "Immerwolf," a Wolf creature which gives a boost to all Wolves and Werewolves, and, while it is in play, non-Human Werewolves cannot transform. So any Werewolf that has transformed into its stronger monster state stays that way. Why is this brilliant? It's all in the name. "Immer" is the German word for "always." So "Immerwolf" means "Always Wolf," as in, "Your Werewolves will stay Wolves."* The Dimir-colored 20-sided die is blue and black, which are very difficult to read from across the table unless the light is just right. How fitting for the guild of secrets and sneaking...* With the ascension of Xenagos to the Therosian pantheon, they number 15: 5 mono-color major gods, and 10 multicolor minor gods. But there wasn't an RG god before Xenagos ascended. Why not? Look at what Xenagos does immediately upon apotheosis: he takes an ordinary "Hey we won a war!" festival, cranks it up to 11, and sends it rollicking across the plane like a cross between a hurricane and a bacchanalian orgy. This has probably happened before, possibly with an ancient god of revels born of Nyx, and he was killed too. ** More on Xenagos, he's actually a perfect villain for a block inspired by Greek mythology. One of Xenagos' key character traits is that he is ridiculously [[{{Pride}} arrogant]] even before he ascends (one of the novels has him mocking the gods with twisted versions of their titles), and he ends up ascending to godhood solely because he feels he deserves to be a god and make things the way they 'should' be. Essentially, he feels he is better than the gods. In other words, Xenagos' sin is ''hubris'', very appropriate for a narrative so steeped in Greek mythology tropes.* Keranos' second ability makes perfect sense. It basically amounts to frequent Lightning Bolts. Fitting for the God of Storms.* Elspeth's spear is revealed to be named Godsend, which can be pronounced in two different ways: God-send or Gods-end. The brilliance comes in the fact that both of these are very [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Names]]: The weapon is a gift from Heliod to his champion (God-send), but it's also one of the very few weapons strong enough to slay a God, and in fact is use to do exactly that (Gods-end).* [[spoiler: Heliod comes across as a complete asshole, [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]], [[{{Pride}} arrogant]], [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] and [[KickTheDog cruel]], and he barely seems suited to be king of the gods. Who else had all of those traits? ''Zeus''. Heliod's jerkassery is just in keeping with the mythology he draws from.]]** [[spoiler: Adding to this, Elspeth's death and Daxos' fate makes ''Godsend'' a DownerEnding. But very few of the heroes in Greek mythology got a happy ending. What, you expected a happy ending in a narrative this steeped in Myth/ClassicalMythology tropes?]]* Despite the end of the ''Theros'' Storyline, [[spoiler: Elspeth has no obligation to stay in the Underworld, unless Erebos bribes her with a hermitage or something. Mastix cannot reach across the Blind Eternities, nor can Khrusor pierce the metaphysical walls that bound the universe of Theros. The planeswalker's soul contains their spark, and has so since the beginning (We've seen this with Xenagos, who by WordOfGod retains his spark even after his apotheosis). She will not be split into body and eidolon as a Returned is, as the ritual requires that they physically leave. She'll need a new face, as that is the price of entry to the Underworld, but both Lorwyn and Ravnica have magic plastic surgery, as does every plane with a suitably-advanced city. All she needs to do is walk away from the gods that have cheated, abused, and killed her. ]]** Sadly, per WordOfGod, [[spoiler: One does not simply planeswalk out of the Underworld.]]* Why did we have the "Gainsay Cycle" in Theros? Because [[spoiler:the story concludes with Heliod, a White aligned character, murdering Elspeth, another White aligned character. In hindsight, Glare of Heresy makes perfect sense.]]* Why were Orcs only introduced in ''Khans of Tarkir'' despite being arguably a staple of fantasy settings? Tarkir is inspired by Asian cultures, and the Mardu, the clan with the most Orcs, is based on the Mongols. Tolkien said this of the Orcs in ''Lord of the Rings'' in one of his letters: ''"... they are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely '''Mongol-types'''."'' Orcs were finally included in Tarkir because to a degree, the ''actual'' Mongols were an inspiration for the TropeCodifier, and so they fit into Tarkir perfectly.** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=207 Um, are you saying there were no orcs in Magic before Khans?]]** While Orcs have existed in the game since long before Tarkir, they've become much more prominent in this block [[labelnote:Explanation]]not counting reprints, there are 34 Orc creatures in the game. Of these, 14 are from the Tarkir block.[[/labelnote]] so it still fits.* There are a few cards in Khans of Tarkir that support colorless cards. That doesn't make sense (in a set with only 1 artifact creature), unless you remember that it also implicitly supports Morph creatures. Adding another layer: many of the colorless support cards reference Ugin, who a) supposedly taught the non-dragons how to morph, and b) as the one that managed to pump enough colorless mana into the Eldrazi that they became colorless (instead of totally incomprehensible).* It makes sense that all the clans of Tarkir are at war with each other. Each clan uses either black or red mana, generally considered the most amoral and violent colors respectively. That could also explain why the Mardu Horde is particularly bloodthirsty, they use BOTH.* In [[http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/uncharted-realms/drop-drop-2015-05-20 "Drop For Drop"]], Kiora swipes [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=373544 Thassa's Bident]]. Combat damage -> draw cards is traditionally a blue, green or blue/green ability, and what colours was Kiora again?* Gideon's BelligerentSexualTension with Chandra makes a lot more sense when you consider a couple of facts from his origin story. First, we now know that he's from the city of Akros, which is heavily associated with ''both'' white ''and'' red mana, so red's ethos would have been a part of his most fundamental ideals. Second, before he became a paladin and heiromancer, he was a street thief and vigilante. There's a strong strain of chaos in him, even if he keeps it mostly repressed these days.

[[AC:FridgeHorror]]* [[http://inkwelllooter.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-life-as-weapon.html The Living Weapon germs are trapped inside their twisted, weaponized shells, unable to leave without dying, forced to kill or die.]]* Eldrazi Spawn tokens. Eldrazi ''Spawn''. As in, children. You sacrifice them to add mana, most likely to summon the big Eldrazi.* The Eldrazi get even scarier when you examine them. Not only are they meant to be reminiscent of Cthulu, but they become even more terrifying when you realize that while they're colorless, they're also not artifacts. They have somehow managed to transcend "mere" things like the five colors that so much of the Magic Multiverse revolves around. Not even Nicol Bolas, the most powerful "old" planeswalker left alive, managed that trick.** Since the Eldrazi essentially devour every Plane they come across, another, less Fridge Horrific explanation is that they're either from a Plane with completely different rules (and that nobody can go to because it's already been eaten), or from somewhere outside the Multiverse entirely.*** It has been stated that the Eldrazi come from the Aether, not any given plane that may or may not have existed. The Aether is the channels between planes, as in, the thing Planeswalkers use to travel between planes. They didn't have any affiliation (not even colourless...They were something transcendent of everything) but gained their colourless status when they were imprisoned on Zendikar, as the only way for the Planeswalkers of old to achieve this was to have Sorin pump them full of colourless magic, and the other two trap them. - Brownie.*** Actually Sorin lead them to Zendikar, where Ugin would blunt their attacks with his "ghostfire" and used his knowledge of colorless magic to bind them to the world. The lithomancer created the prison.* The Dredge keyword. At first, it seems simple enough - you mill yourself to get something lost. Then, you remember that, in Magic, your Deck means your ''memory''. Basically, in-flavor, to use Dredge, ''you need to sacrifice your sanity''** Actually, in Magic, your deck is called a 'library', which is basically your spellbook. Therefore, it's more like erasing stuff from your spellbook that you can re-write later.*** Whilst it's called a library, fluffwise it's your memory (library = all the spells you know, hand = the handful (geddit?) of spells you're thinking about at any given moment). Library is just a fantasy word that vaguely has to do with what the deck is. It could also do with the evolution of the game's fluff: in the early days the deck might have represented your spellbook, but it means memory at this point.**** Also consider cards like Jace, Memory Adept; Jace, the Mind-Sculptor; Traumatize; Mindcrank... This list could go on forever. Quite a lot of the cards that have to do with milling are about memory, mind, and/or sanity.**** Interestingly, this presents an explanation for both your maximum hand size and the "unable to draw" loss condition. Maximum hand size is the number of spells you can remember clearly at a given time; too much information to remember for long causes you to focus on a few and disregard the rest (discarding). But when you can remember nothing else at all that hasn't already been cast or slipped your mind, you go insane. Of course there are exceptions; someone like Laboratory Maniac would prefer that to happen.* Oddly, it's pointed out to you, but you just don't think about it. Mostly it's "Sacrifice a creature:...", which seems like it's as in "sometimes we need to make sacrifices", before you remember the players represent wizards and sorcerers. Eldrazi Spawn tokens take this to a whole new level: You can sacrifice them to generate one colorless mana each, which you'll most likely use to summon the huge, [[PlayerArchetypes Timmy]]-favored, {{Troperrific}} (MasterRace, EldritchAbomination, NonElemental, etc. etc.) Eldrazi. Yes, the Eldrazi eat their children.** A friend came up with an idea that makes it a bit less horrific: The spawn are simply mana made flesh, they have no real conscience. The reason they can be sacrificed is it lets the mana flow into the world. The Eldrazi eat mana. You don't so much summon Emrakul, as the spawn go to wake him up. Like an alarm clock. When there's 15 of them poking his head, he rolls over to get up and squashes them, devouring the mana they once held.** Not so bad if you understand the premise of the game. The players represent planeswalkers, powerful wizards who have developed the ability to shift from one plane of reality to another, each plane manifesting as some sort of world. The battle between players is to decide who controls the plane that they are on at the time, and all of the cards represent the memories of the planeswalkers. The lands represent all the places they've been to, and recalling them allows the planeswalkers to call forth the mana that flowed through that land. All of the creatures are sort of Platonic forms: Idealised representations of some remembered creature, made manifest by the planeswalker converting the mana into a physical form with a purpose. Sacrificing a creature merely means dissolving the integrity of the magical construct in such a way that the energy can be directed to some other purpose.*** With the introduction of the word "dies" into the official jargon, it could literally mean you're not summoning an idealisation of the creature, but the creature itself, which can then die a horrible, horrible death. **** Magical copies can "die" or cease to exist as well. The term was mostly introduced because everyone was using it to describe a creature hitting the graveyard, and it's a lot shorter than "creature goes to the graveyard from play."** By contrast, because goblins are TooDumbToLive, sacrificing a goblin is funny. Or Mogg Fanatic (sacrifice to do 1 damage to anything), bloodfire cards (sacrifice to do damage equal to its power to everything), and Goblin Grenade (sacrifice a goblin to do 5 damage to anything).** [[MookMaker Token creatures]] in general fit this trope, as they were mostly created by some sort of (usually asexual) reproduction. They were born to fight.*** Certain tokens, such as Tuktuk the Returned and the Marit Lage tokens are meant to represent the great deity the base cards summon, after a certain condition are met. ** [[AndIMustScream Chimeric Idol and "Opal" enchantments]]. Chimeric Idol is a statue that turns into a creature. So are Opal enchantments.** Titania's Song (makes artifacts into creatures with power and toughness equal to their mana cost) on zero-cost artifacts. Now, for the record, when toughness => damage a creature's taken since the last end-of-turn step, it goes straight to the discard pile, a.k.a. the graveyard. Yes, it's possible to animate artifacts only to kill them. Since any competitive Vintage deck will include a Black Lotus, a Lotus Petal, and all the appropriate Moxen for its colors, any competitive Vintage deck not including those will include Titania's Song or its aura (affects only one) cousin, Animate Artifact. Also, if Titania's Song is destroyed, though only two colors can really destroy it, AndIMustScream is invoked.** Lord of the Undead (a card which, among other things, can return zombies from the graveyard to your hand) + Lord of the Pit (a card which requires a sacrifice every turn or it does more damage to you). What sadist would play this? A sadist who wants to win, that's who.** The Stuffy Doll/Guilty Conscience combo is particularly terrifying. Essentially you kill your opponent by making a voodoo doll of him feel guilt, which damages the voodoo doll, which damages your opponent, which makes the voodoo doll feel guiltier, which damages the opponent more. You give a doll a conscience only so that it can kill your opponent with its own shame. Over killing your opponent.** A storyline-related one: [[TheVirus New Phyrexia]]. The good news is, Phyrexians can't planeswalk, so unless they get something like the ''[[CoolShip Weatherlight]]'', they're safe. The bad news is, ''every plane Karn has ever visited'' before Venser [[HeroicSacrifice purified him]] has Phyrexian oil on it! And so long as a drop of Phyrexian oil is on any plane, the Great Work can continue. And if the Mirrans with their [[GameBreaker affinity and Skullclamps and all the rest of their tricks]] couldn't beat the Phyrexians, what chance do (for instance) the Mercadians have?*** Luckily, Karn's dealt with the issue by simply negating the oil's crazytime effects. Besides which, the Mirrans had the disadvantage of already being partly metal and therefore more vulnerable to phyresis.* The Innistrad block ends with Griselbrand dying and most of the demons being hunted down and killed. However, it was stated in "The Saint, the Geist, and the Angel" that Demons do not die permanently. Withengar, for example, returned after being defeated by st. Traft's guardian. What's to say that Griselbrand won't return? Also, there's no helvault to trap them in and it is never stated that angels can return from the dead. Eventually, the angels will slowly die off and the demons will just come back.** Given that the reason the demons can return is that they are in essence constructs of pure black mana, I'm pretty sure that angels (constructs of pure white mana) can also reincarnate.** On the other hand, it's sometimes stated that the chain veil could somehow kill Griselbrand permanently, so we may have seen the last of him.** The card Defy Death's flavor implies that angels can come back as well.** Even if Griselbrand does come back and somehow defeat Avacyn it wouldd just drag Sorin (the guy who ccreated Avacyn) back to Innistrad. And Sorin is NOT somebody you want mad at you.* Speaking of demons, WordofGod says that [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=227417 Ravenous Demon's]] design was based on the idea that to demons, humans are like potato chips.* Also from Innistrad, look at the art on [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247421 Tree of Redemption]]. Those are ''nooses''.** RedemptionEqualsDeath?* Several things about the Eldrazi.** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=193439 Naturalize]] from ''Rise of the Eldrazi'' depicts a mage destroying a hedron, with a matching flavor text that shows someone being annoyed at the hedron being intact long enough for the Eldrazi to start using them, like in [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193536 Hedron Matrix]]. Seeing that these same hedrons still manage to lock the Eldrazi in Zendikar, one can only shudder that this unknowing mage is actually actively bringing Zendikar even closer to certain doom.** Gameplay-wise, one of the very few ways to permanently deal with the Eldrazi is to exile them. Thing is, exile effects carry several meanings: Either completely destroying something until nothing remains (such as [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202542 Dust to Dust]], assigning them elsewhere [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=271 Swords to Plowshares]], or sending them to another place [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247547 Journey to Nowhere]]. If you somehow use the last two option (if it is at all possible), imagine where you might actually send them to. * Though Dromoka and her clan seem idillic when compared to the rest of Tarkir, a lot of it seems more horrifying the more you think about it. For starters, it's a meritocracy... because Dromoka's a [[TheSocialDarwinist social darwinist]]. Parents are not allowed to raise their children as their own, and yet they're encouraged to have children. Even her initial obsession, to stomp out "necromancy", is reasoned like [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything the worst sort of religious fanatic]].

[[AC:FridgeLogic]]* The reasoning for the exclusion of Angels, White's iconic creature, from the Greek-themed Theros block because they supposedly don't fit the setting. Despite the fact that the Greeks ''invented'' Angels, and are responsible for their modern winged human appearance.** But most people don't know that, and thus it ''would'' look out of place. Kamigawa taught Creative that accuracy to the basis of a world usually needs to take a backseat to what players generally expect and know about the basis.